The New Politics of PornographyFresh empirical evidence of pornography's negative effects and the resurgence of feminist and conservative critiques have caused local, state, and federal officials to reassess the pornography issue. In The New Politics of Pornography, Donald Alexander Downs explores the contemporary antipornography movement and addresses difficult questions about the limits of free speech. Drawing on official transcripts and extensive interviews, Downs recreates and analyzes landmark cases in Minneapolis and Indianapolis. He argues persuasively that both conservative and liberal camps are often characterized by extreme intolerance which hampers open policy debate and may ultimately threaten our modern doctrine of free speech. Downs concludes with a balanced and nuanced discussion of what First Amendment protections pornography should be afforded. This provocative and interdisciplinary work will interest students of political science, women's studies, civil liberties, and constitutional law. |
Contents
The New Politics of Pornography and the Challenging to the Modern Doctrine of Free Speech and Obscenity | 1 |
The Minneapolis Ordinance and the Feminist Theory of Pornography and Sexuality | 34 |
The Politics of the Minneapolis Ordinance | 51 |
Strange Bedfellows The Politics of the Ordinance in Indianapolis | 95 |
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Common terms and phrases
action activists aggression Amendment Andrea Dworkin anti anti-porn Anti-Pornography Movement anti-pornography ordinance approach Attorney General's Commission Beulah Coughenour Brest Brest and Vandenberg Catharine MacKinnon censorship Charlee Hoyt city council Civil Liberties civil rights Committee concerning conservative constitutional Coughenour council members critique David Gross David McGrath debate definition of pornography discrimination discussion doctrine of speech Donnerstein effects enforcement expression film Final Report forms free speech harm hearings Hudnut human Indianapolis Indianapolis Star individual interview issue Law Review Liz Anderson logic male Mayor ment Miller Minneapolis City Council Minneapolis Star modern doctrine moral nance Naomi Scheman neutrality nography normative obscenity law ordi ordinance's politics of pornography porn pornog pornogra Press protection provision radical feminist rape raphy restriction Secret Museum sexual depictions sexual materials sexual violence sexually explicit Sheila Kennedy society Star and Tribune Supreme Court theory tion tolerance Unigov violent pornography vote